There was a time a walk around the neighborhood was hardly worth the stress to Mike Hargrove.
As the manager of the Indians in the early 1990s, Hargrove saw the franchise go through its share of hard knocks and growing pains. Not many people wanted to be told to be patient.
“I had people in the neighborhood asking me, ‘What the heck are you guys doing?’ ” Hargrove said. “I’d tell them, and they’d look at me in disbelief. I said, ‘stay the course’ so many times that I swear if I said it one more time, I’d just throw up all over myself.”
But at the end of the tunnel was 1994, a year that would feature the opening of a new home — Jacobs Field — and the further maturation process of a core of young players who had signed long-term deals.
Twenty years after opening Jacobs Field as the Indians’ manager, Hargrove returned to the same stadium — now named Progressive Field — and christened the home opener on April 4 with the ceremonial first pitch.
A stadium full of optimistic fans and and roster full of young talent locked up in long-term deals has Hargrove feeling 1994 and 2014 have an awful lot in common.
“There’s a plan,” Hargrove said of the current state of the Indians. “I played here seven or eight years, and it seemed like every other year, we were coming up with a new five-year plan.”
The current Indians are nothing like that. Following a blueprint used in the early 1990s, the current Indians regime has made a point to sign younger players to long-term contracts.
The Indians took another step in that direction early April 4 when they announced 27-year-old second baseman Jason Kipnis had signed a six-year, $52.5 million extension.
Other players such as outfielder Michael Bourn, first baseman Nick Swisher, catcher Yan Gomes and outfielder Michael Brantley have also been signed to long-term deals.
The team construction is similiar to the early 1990s, Hargrove said, when the plan was “to identify our core players and develop the meat of the ballclub,” then fill in with trades and free agency to — as Hargrove put it — “put the club over the top.”
It’s a system Hargrove credits to John Hart, Dan O’Dowd and Mark Shapiro.
“We wanted to do something that didn’t last one or two years,” Hargrove said, “but five, 10 or 15 years. And I think we were successful in doing that.”
Hargrove said the recent moves by the Indians’ front office send a message to not only the players, but also to the fans. He said he has heard fans around the nation who don’t feel like their ownership is invested in building a winner. The Dolan family, he said, should not fall into that category.
Players notice.
“It sends a message. All players want to see the people they’re playing for are committed to winning as much as they are,” Hargrove said. “You feel like when you look around the boat, everybody is all in.”
Though it was 20 years earlier, Hargrove looks back fondly on the Jacobs Field opener on April 4, 1994. The Indians defeated the Seattle Mariners, 4-3, in 11 innings.
The memories flow back to Hargrove as fresh as they were two decades ago.
“You wish every day could be opening day,” Hargrove said. “But it can’t. Then you add in all the things to it — moving out of the old ballpark into this one, the president (Bill Clinton) and having a decent ballpark. It was fun.”